Yellow fever in Togo

29/01/2007

A mass vaccination campaign is planned to take place in the next two weeks in the regions of Savanes and Kara where 3 cases of yellow fever have been laboratory confirmed.

The most recent yellow fever mass vaccination campaign in this area was conducted in 1987 and as a result the population is highly susceptible to the disease. The current campaign will be carried out with 1 550 000 vaccine doses from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) emergency stockpile, through the International Coordinating Group (ICG) on Vaccine Provision for Yellow Fever Control. The campaign is targeting the population over 9 months in 11 districts in these two regions. The Ministry of Health will conduct the campaign, assisted by the WHO country office and epidemiologists, a logistician and an expert in quality assurance from the WHO Regional Office for Africa and WHO headquarters, an epidemiologist from Agence de Médecine Préventive, a partner in the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, and a social mobilization expert from the WHO Mediterranean Centre for Vulnerability Reduction (WMC).

The Togolese Red Cross will mobilize its national volunteer network during the campaign, and will carry out social mobilization activities, with the support of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. UNICEF will also provide technical support to the campaign.Financial support for the campaign has been made available through an ECHO-funded project to strengthen alert, risk assessment and coordination of epidemic response in countries of West Africa.